Tuning In: Patriots can survive Rob Gronkowski loss

Thursday

Nov 22, 2012 at 6:00 AM

Bill Doyle Tuning In

Today is Thanksgiving Day and Cris Collinsworth urges Patriots fans to count their blessings. Sure, New England will miss Rob Gronkowski when it visits the Jets at 8:20 tonight on NBC, but they have other offensive weapons.

“Certainly, it’s going to have an effect,” said Collinsworth, who will analyze NBC’s first Thanksgiving night game alongside Al Michaels, “but you can’t watch what happened against the Colts and say this offense is going to shut down without him because, my goodness, it’s pretty amazing what they’re doing right now.”

Gronkowski caught seven passes Sunday for 137 yards and two touchdowns and the Patriots tied a franchise high for points while beating Indianapolis, 59-24. But he broke his left forearm late in the game and is expected to be sidelined for 4-8 weeks.

Collinsworth analyzed the action on NBC while the Patriots struggled offensively in a 21-17 loss to the Giants in the Super Bowl last February. Gronkowski was slowed by a high ankle sprain and caught only two passes for 26 yards.

“Certainly, Rob had some balls down the field,” Collinsworth said, “and he wasn’t what he had been during the season. Would it have been the difference in the game? Who knows? Maybe he would have had three fumbles in the game.”

The loss of Gronkowski obviously won’t be felt as much if fellow tight Aaron Hernandez can return from the high ankle sprain that has sidelined him for six games. Collinsworth credits the success of Gronkowski and Hernandez with revolutionizing the NFL.

“It’s all about those matchup issues,” he said, “and the ability to bring those guys in tight and run the ball, and with the same personnel group on the field, all of a sudden you’re five wides and good luck covering Hernandez and Gronkowski in the open field.

“Now, everybody else is looking for tight ends that can do the same thing. We went from where tight ends were almost an afterthought in the draft to where everybody seems to be looking for the same thing right now.”

Collinsworth, a former three-time All-Pro wide receiver with Cincinnati, is also a big fan of Patriots wide receiver Wes Welker.

“I don’t watch anybody on film,” Collinsworth said, “that I think gives a greater effort on every single play in every single game that he’s ever played.”

While Tom Brady continues to be one of the best quarterbacks in the NFL, nitpickers may point out that he no longer completes the deep passes he did when Randy Moss was around.

“I think we all got really spoiled there for a while,” Collinsworth said. “What he did with Randy Moss, it wasn’t fair maybe to him for the rest of his career because nobody had ever done it before, nobody’s done it since, and there’s a good chance nobody ever will.”

The Jets bring a 4-6 record into tonight’s game and trail the first-place Patriots by three games in the AFC East. The Jets have been a mess and some fans have called for Tim Tebow to replace Mark Sanchez as the starting quarterback. Sanchez’s teammates side with him.

“To me, it’s almost unbelievable,” Collinsworth said, “that a guy who just doesn’t play that much can be blamed for a team not playing well. What’s he play, a handful of plays every game? And yet you would think that he has almost singlehandedly destroyed the New York Jets.”

Collinsworth has the rare ability to analyze a play quickly and succinctly. There’s little meandering with him.

Michaels may be good at play-by-play, but he’s not so good that he doesn’t need an interesting analyst at his side, and Collinsworth is the best in football. What’s the secret to his success?

“If you watch football, you watch the ball,” he said. “So I don’t ever watch the ball. Truthfully, there have been plays where I didn’t know who scored the touchdown because I was watching away from the ball.”

Collinsworth said he’s like a batter in baseball guessing whether the pitcher will throw a fastball or a curve. If he anticipates a run, he watches a certain thing. If he guesses pass, he watches something else. If he thinks it will be a blitz, he’ll watch yet another thing.

“Sometimes I get it wrong,” he said. “Every once in a while, you hear me say nothing and you know I guessed really wrong.”

With Michaels and Collinsworth calling the action, “Sunday Night Football” — not “Dancing with the Stars” or “American Idol” or “NCIS” — is the most-watched primetime program in television for the second year in a row, averaging 20.9 million viewers.

Last season, SNF became the first sports series to become the No.1 show of the primetime television season.